Lights of Home
by Awdures
Summary: How do you spend the first Christmas after a war? (Sonic Forces based)


The Tornado touched down smoothly, the skis and Tails' accuracy making the transition from flight almost undetectable.

"I think we're the last to arrive," Tails said. A motley collection of other transport was parked nearby, giving the broad meadow which lay beneath the snow an uncharacteristic cluttered look.

Sonic gasped in mock outrage.

"Why's he got the Island this far north in the depths of winter anyway?" he asked rhetorically of their, as yet absent, host, pulling a bobble hat down tightly over both ears.

"Look at the snow!" Tails was so wide-eyed that Sonic was certainly that this wasn't actually the answer, but he watched anyway as Tails leapt out of the cockpit, scarf flying. He landed past his knees in the snow and laughed.

Sonic smiled. Whatever the reason it was nice to see Tails laughing at something as simple as playing in the snow like the cub he still was. It had been too long since he'd had the opportunity.

Since any of them had had the opportunity. Even though things were approaching normality again in the aftermath of what people were now calling the Ruby War, it hadn't come without a lot of hard work, and even the occasional further fight.

That Knuckles felt able to return home was a mark of how far they'd come since then. And the fact he that he felt secure in inviting them all here to the once-again Floating Island was a sign of how much had changed. Especially for something as trivial as a Christmas party.

Sonic gave the mixed collection of ships another look, trying to match them to the various Resistance members he expected to see.

The Chaotix' shuttle was the easiest to pick out. It had been repeatedly repainted – from Egg Fleet, to Resistance, to _whatever_ it was Vector had let Charmy do it it most recently and it was even more of a contrast against the snow than the bright red Tornado.

Amy was still using one of the Resistance flyers, unpainted but denuded of its weapons. It still bristled with communications antennae. Amy and her team were taking no chances on a Eggman resurgence.

An Egg Fleet fighter which had been redecorated only to the extent of splashing out the logo completed the line up. The snow was still melting below its landing gear and thrusters. It had arrived only moments before them and as Sonic watched the door slid open.

The warm air from within steamed instantly in the freezing air and Rouge the bat stepped through it, swaddled to the eyeballs in an enormous puffy pink and black jacket and a furry white hat which encompassed both ears and carried on into a sort of scarf.

"This is no weather for bats," she declared, spotting Sonic and raising her voice to make sure he caught it. "A girl could feel unwelcome." She looked around. "Think that's the point of the location? Somewhere we can all find but are never coming back to?"

Sonic shrugged. It wasn't impossible that Knuckles had specifically chosen a location he explicitly intended not to reuse. That he would extend trust thus far and no further would not be unexpected. Invites were one thing. Open season another entirely.

And yet here they all were. Even Shadow, who followed Rouge out, apparently unperturbed by the weather.

"No Omega?" Sonic raised his eyebrows.

Rouge shook her head.

"Says Christmas is illogical and without purpose."

Sonic shrugged. "Gotta be honest I would have expected Knux to think the same."

Rouge smiled. "I did find one extra passenger though." She leaned back into the ship and raised her voice even further. "Hey, the ship stopped moving ten minutes ago!"

She turned back to Sonic.

"Airsick," she offered in explanation and a moment later a distinctly queasy-looking wolf had staggered to the hatch.

Sonic grinned.

"Rookie! Well… former..."

The wolf had made no concession to the weather beyond thicker gloves and his fur was thicker than Sonic recalled. Perhaps he'd been living almost this far north already. He grinned and waved and didn't argue the title.

"You're almost late, Sonic!" Sonic spun round indignantly at sound of Knuckles' voice from almost at his shoulder. For someone he could easily outrun, the echidna was remarkably good at arriving unexpectedly.

Cover this time had been provided by the huge snow drifts. Something Knuckles had apparently chosen to traverse by Extreme Gear rather than on foot. He had it over his shoulder for now though and walked with the rest of them as he led the way uphill.

"Amy and Silver are looking after the fire, they arrived earlier," he explained as they walked.

Sonic tried to keep track of their route but it was unfamiliar in the snow. Had Knuckles had the Island this far north ever since he'd got back here? It was a lot of snow.

The light faded quickly and by the time they saw the firelight it was brighter than the sunset horizon. It had been built in a long trench lined with stones and the flames leapt high and bright at only one end. The other was only glowing embers. As they approached Silver was raking a glowing log from the main fire down to that end and replacing it with fresh wood. Amy was stirring a blackened pot over the brightest part of the fire.

Knuckles waved in invitation to the rough cut logs which had been set up at the perimeter of the fire on both sides.

Amy smiled at them as they sat.

"Wow," she said. "I think the last time we were all in the same place was literally the day we actually won!"

Sonic thought about it. Could that be right? Surely there was a more recent occasion. But he couldn't think of one. They'd all been back and forth, all worked on different things to try and restore some normality to things, but they'd all divided their time and maybe Amy was right.

Knuckles nodded. "I think so too. It seemed… worth repeating."

He gestured at a large bag on the ground near one of the improvised benches. "I've got food. Dinner's mostly started or there's snacks if you're hungry already." He eyeballed Sonic as he said this and pointed at a pan balanced among the embers. "There's chestnuts and Amy brought sausages and marshmallows."

"It all sounds good!" Tails said happily. "Marshmallow for me!"

Amy passed a stick and the bag of marshmallows. Everyone else made a selection and settled down. Knuckles checked on another pan hanging on a tripod closer to the main fire then started arranging potatoes from his bag in among the embers. He stirred the ashes to a bright glow before shovelling them over the top of the potatoes.

Sonic's eye followed the scatter of sparks up into the now dark sky.

He froze, eyes eyes wide.

"Heh! Look!"

Other pairs of eyes followed this and there were smiles and exclamations.

Above their heads, colours danced, swirling patterns of lights. Just flickers at first but building to sweeping columns, swaying and shimmering in the sky.

"The aurora entropri," Tails said happily, laying back to watch in spite of the snow.

"The Mobian lights," Silver sounded as entranced as Tails. "I've never seen them."

Sonic looked over at the other hedgehog, not wanting to spoil the moment by asking the reason in case it was catastrophic.

"What causes them?" Amy asked, before he could decide whether or not to speak.

"Spirit wolves with fiery tails."

"Chaos energy interacting with solar radiation in the high atmosphere."

Both wolf and fox had spoken together and both laughed.

"That's a nicer story," Tails allowed.

"Do foxes tell stories about them too?" The young wolf asked.

Tails sat up.

"I… don't know. I didn't grow up with other foxes."

Sonic slid himself closer.

"Grew up with me! Lucky me!"

Tails smiled.

"Let's have a hedgehog story then," Vector said.

Sonic frowned. "I'm not sure I know any hedgehog _specific_ stories about the lights. Amy?"

She shrugged, shook her head and glanced at the other two. Silver gestured utter lack of ideas and Shadow only raised his eyebrows.

Tails looked thoughtful.

"Hedgehogs used to hibernate in the part of the year they're most common. Maybe that's why. They didn't see them very often. Most places have stories about them though."

"I could make one up if you like," Sonic smirked. "Once upon a time, running through the sky there was a blue hedgehog of utter awesomeness, a pink hedgehog of reasonably complete awesomeness, a white hedgehog of-"

"You can leave me out of this," Silver laughed. Sonic darted Shadow a smirk and started "and a-"

"Maybe we should hear someone else's story..." Amy cut him off. "Vector asked first so he can tell us a crocodile story about the lights."

"Yes yes!" Charmy encouraged. "Let's have it."

"I don't have a story exactly. Settle down, Charmy. _Once upon a time_..." He mimicked Sonic's over the top story telling tone, but dropped back to a matter of fact one almost at once.

"Crocodiles didn't hibernate like hedgehogs but winters were tough before there weren't the mod cons for us cold-blooded types. Seeing the lights meant you were lively when most people weren't, more alert, or an explorer."

He picked up his hot drink from beside him and wrapped his hands around it as if the discussion of the cold had conjured a chill.

"Water's warmer than the land sometimes in winter. When you look up at the surface of the water from underneath – the ripples and rays of light shining through – the world above looks completes different. So that's the story."

He pointed vaguely upwards. "That's what the traditional version says – the lights are the boundary of this world and the next, like the boundary between the water and the air. Rippling so much we can only see a mess of colours, not the thing itself that's up there."

Everyone looked up again. Sonic did too. Did it really look like that? Looking at the water surface from below was the least of his worries when he found himself in a position to do so!

Vector nudged Charmy.

"Your turn then since you nagged me."

"Bugs from the moon," Charmy said promptly.

There was a moment's pause. The fire crackled and spat in the silence.

"You want to give us a bit more detail?" Sonic asked, eventually.

"Glow worms from the moon," Charmy said with deliberate slowness. "People were mean to 'em here so they flew away to the moon. Sometimes they come out to dance up high where no one can laugh at 'em."

Sonic shrugged. "Okay. Wolves with their butts on fire, borders between worlds and space bugs. I'm feeling we hedgehogs missed out on some good tale spinning here! What else we got? Esp?"

Espio smiled, unperturbed by the request. Perhaps he'd seen it coming.

"The story that newly hatched chameleons get told about how the world got to be here and why it's the way it is, is long and complicated and there's enough details that spin out into legends of their own for a whole childhood's worth of bedtime stories. One of them is about the hatching of the egg of the world and the great mother chameleon who laid it and tended it, and tends it still."

Vector glanced across at his Chaotix partner and grinned nostalgically. Charmy was smiling too, Sonic wondered if they'd heard it before. Had Espio and Vector told Charmy stories from their own childhood as he'd made up ones for Tails?

"Lots of egg laying species have a story like that," Tails said.

"Echidnas don't," Knuckles said, without looking up from turning the potatoes and raking the embers back over them.

Espio ignored both interjections.

"The great mother chameleon is as long as the sky and her tail curls all the way around the sun and all the way around the moon." He recited. "She's always there and always watchful, of our world, and all the others spread across the sky. But of course we can't see her – she's a chameleon, the best of us, and her camouflage is perfect. Her skin is sunlight and starlight and the blue sky and the black sky and the dawn and the dusk and the shades in between. So we can look and look and never see."

He stopped and pointed upwards at the dancing lights.

"Except for sometimes. When her attention is on one of the other worlds she watches over and her colours just for a moment, mirror their sky instead of our own and we get a glimpse."

Sonic clapped.

"Hmm!" Charmy burst out. "You never told me that ending to the story!"

Espio laughed. "It only works when you're out under the lights. The opportunity didn't arise."

"You're a good storyteller though," Tails said.

Espio gave Charmy a hint of a shove. "Practice. _Someone_ wouldn't ever pipe down and sleep otherwise." He leaned forward to stir the contents of the blackened pot on the tripod over the fire. "How's the rest of dinner coming, Knuckles?"

"Almost," Knuckles said.

"So who hasn't told a story yet?" Sonic asked, helping himself to another marshmallow and brandishing it at the fire in the meantime. "Rouge? What do bats say it is?"

She smiled in the firelight.

"They don't. They say you _can't_ say what it is. They say it's something ghostly." She leaned closer to the fire. "Something you can only _see_… Something that's hardly there at all. Something you can't touch, or hear, or smell, or ping. The wingbeats of the dead stirring the sparks of their own fires maybe, or -"

She waved a mittened hand. "Or whatever the pups telling the story to each other think is scariest."

"Wow," said Amy. "That is the least Christmassy story yet!"

Rouge shrugged. "Blue there asked. I only answered!"

"Fair," Sonic allowed. "Just Knux left then. He looked across the firepit at the echidna who was retrieving the baked potatoes from the embers and flicking them deftly into shallow wooden bowls, some of which looked entirely unused. The smooth sanded wood was still pale and unmarked.

Amy lifted the lid from the pan on the fire and dished a large dollop of thick stew onto the bowls as Knuckles passed them down the lines.

Sonic accepted his and turned the spoon over in his hand. New as well though obviously hand made. Knuckles had really prepared for this visit. Sonic dug the spoon in with enthusiasm and gave the echidna a thumbs up.

Knuckles looked startled. Probably had been expecting a joke about his cooking, Sonic guessed.

"Knuckles?" Tails prompted once everyone was served and had made good inroads into the food. "_Did_ echidnas have stories about the lights?"

Knuckles paused with the last of his stew halfway to his mouth.

"Not exactly. You were closest." He blew on the spoonful and ate it. After a moment to chew and swallow he went on. "They knew it was something to do with chaos, they thought the colours had significance, that they told something about the chaos emeralds of those colours – their influence in the world at any given moment, but.."

He sighed and scrapped up the last of the stew in his bowl. Finishing it off before continuing.

"The chaos emeralds – and the Master Emerald for the matter – they're almost like something out of a story anyway. The things they can do, the unpredictability, the–" He trailed off and shrugged. "I don't have many good ways of working out what's superstition and what's maybe real if it wasn't for the fact I don't know how to make it work."

He tested the temperature of his baked potato with his hand and broke it open, watching the sky again as the steam rose.

"They thought a display this dramatic only happened at times of great change."

"Well we've certainly had that." Amy looked up as well.

There were nods and murmurs of agreement.

Tails frowned. "That bit might be sort of explainable – it's partly a chaos reaction and if we're talking about impact in the world, then times when the chaos emeralds have all been gathered together or all scattered apart probably do only happened when something big's kicked off."

Knuckles nodded. "It wouldn't be the first or last thing I thought was a story that was turned out to be real."

"At least this change is a good one," Silver said. "The end of a war not the start of one."

"Yeah," Charmy added. "All those colours could be like party fireworks."

"Not glow worms in a fit of pique after all?" Vector asked.

Charmy stuck his tongue out.

"Did you know we'd see them tonight? From here?" Tails asked.

"I… thought we might?" Knuckles said, though he didn't sound entirely sure. "I know you're going to ask how, and I don't know. I've seen them lots of times and it just _seemed_ like it would be tonight."

For once Tails kept on rein on his curiosity and kept any follow-up questions to himself.

Sonic jumped over the fire to Knuckles' side to stick his nose in the supplies bag.

"So on a more important note, what's for pudding?"

Knuckles shoved him away one-handed.

"Get out of it, Sonic."

"_Is_ there pudding?" Charmy was up off the log he'd been sitting on and peering over from mid air.

Knuckles looked ambushed and Sonic almost laughed.

"There is!" Knuckles said. "Back off."

Vector caught hold of Charmy's leg and pulled him back down.

Knuckles reached into the bag himself and drew out several bunches of bananas, breaking off the individual fruits and burying them in the ashes.

Sonic realised he must have made a sceptical face because Knuckles stared at him.

"You'll like them, I promise. They're a stupid sticky sugary mess."

"Awesome!" Sonic grinned instead of rising to the bait and Knuckles sat back down.

Sonic sat back down himself, beside Knuckles this time.

"Thanks for having us, Knux. Really."

Knuckles looked startled once again. "Thanks?" he said. "I mean – you're welcome."

"Yeah," Amy added, "It's definitely the most unusual Christmas dinner I've ever had, but it's been lovely."

"Mmhmm, nice place you've got here," Rouge put in and immediately laughed at the wary look that sprang to Knuckles' face.

Similar comments followed until Knuckles seemed glad to duck his head and return his attention to the bananas.

He was right about them, Sonic decided once they were fished out. They were a sticky mess. The skins had split when Knuckles had nicked them and inside, the banana was a gooey toffee-ish mush. Eating them was a balancing act between revelling in the taste and avoiding a burnt tongue and it silenced everyone for the next few minutes.

Finally they all sat, full and warm and comfortable, with the firelight around them and the other, stranger lights still dancing overhead and casting flickering reflections in the ice.

Watching the change of the year roll in together.

* * *

END

* * *

_The title of this... I do know that the end-credits song for Forces is actually called Light of Hope, not 'home' but in the Spaceport track where it also uses the phrase "in the distance I see the light of hope" I just consistently misheard it so many times as "home" for "hope" that there… It seemed as valid to me anyway – what's worth fighting for if not a peaceful home. So I've commandeered that version for a title!_


End file.
